Beginning 2009

So here I am, a wet Tuesday in February, all alone in an empty staff room. It’s 10am and I know that by the time my class arrives four hours from now I’ll be lulled into a state of torpor. I also know that after five minutes with ten excitable fifteen year old boys I’ll be running on full adrenalin and before I know it my work day will be over.

I could blame the Korean Education Board for their ridiculous solution to the injustice of holiday time variation between provinces – i.e. give all ‘guest English teachers’ (yes, we are GETs) a meagre 14 day holiday allowance a year despite the annual 14 weeks holiday the students have. I could blame myself for signing the contract without considering the implications of that. I could blame the Principal of my school for not being one of those who creatively interpret the higher authority’s rules.

Instead, I’m making the most of this situation I’ve found myself in. With the weather ranging from bitterly cold to tediously tepid I decided to let my scooter sit in the garage until spring. Instead I have walked the length and breadth of Namhae, discovering new side streets, new buildings, new views of the landscape. This is no great feat. I can walk to the edge of town in twenty minutes. From any given point I can see one of many familiar landmarks on the skyline so I can never feel the uneasy thrill of thinking maybe I’m lost.

On my mini-treks through the town, and in my daily life generally, I rarely speak more than a few words, mainly ‘hello’ in English or Korean. That is about the extent of shared language between me and the good people of this little backwater. Of my very few fellow ‘foreigners’ – who are almost all contracted through less stringent employers – all but two are back in their homelands for the winter. Consequently, I spend most of my free time alone, holed up in my room, watching films, listening to Radio 4’s drama collection, or writing stories.

This silent, solitary existence might sound a bit depressing, especially to the gregarious, communicative types whose idea of quality time alone involves a newspaper and a lock on the bathroom door. But I find it quite pleasant. I’m happy with my own company and long ago discovered the joy of not understanding the inane chatter of people around me. I can drift in and out of the social world like I was on some kind of drug.

Occasionally I’m jolted back by colleagues who insist on including me in their activities. Each day, one or two teachers are obliged to put in a few hours planning and preparation in the staff room. Lunch is the highlight of the day. Eating, for Koreans, is a very social thing. During term time we all eat in the school canteen – a set menu hot meal. This isn’t optional; permission to skip this communal event must be sought from the Vice-Principal. Sandwiches eaten solo at your desk or nipping out for a snack while picking up a bit of shopping is tantamount to slapping your colleagues’ faces.

During this long, quiet winter break the canteen is closed so one of the teachers will ask something like ‘who is taking the bullet today?’ and someone will volunteer to pay for everyone’s meal from a local Chinese or Korean take away. When the courier arrives on his scooter, stacks of hot dishes produced from a big, shelved box will be arranged on a couple of desks cleared for the occasion. The courier will be back later to collect the dishes and chopsticks and spoons left for him on the porch.

I find it frustrating sometimes. The conversation in which decisions are made about the what and when of lunch is just one of the many unintelligible background sounds I’ve tuned out. Sometimes people will decide to go out to eat together. Sometimes they will decide to end their working day around 1pm and go home to eat with their families. Sometimes they’ll order a take-away. The arrival of the courier is the first warning I get that I am expected to share a meal with my colleagues. Seeing the dishes unpacked is the first sight I get of what I am expected to eat.

I remember when I was spoon feeding my children when they were babies and thinking ‘what if today they really, really want the puréed vegetable risotto they had yesterday and just don’t fancy this macaroni cheese I’m forcing on them today?’. They, as I do now, ate because they were hungry and because they understood that choice is a luxury rarely afforded to the mute, I am mute, here. I’m also very patient, tolerant and will eat just about anything offered to me in good faith.

Of course well-intentioned people have offered solutions to my perceived problems. If I were a different person no doubt I’d respond differently, take some other action, change things. Instead, I’m me and I recall those long ago times when I was a wife and mother in another small, more familiar town. My life bustled along at a fantastic pace; an endless round of shopping, laundry, cleaning, socializing, making dinner, managing children, making a living. I dreamt of a life where I could shut out the incessant clatter, stop the relentless drive of domesticity and work and just sit, think and write. I believed that if I had a different life, one where I was free of mundanity, deaf to the daily babble and could see only the interesting and the fascinating around me, I would find inspiration to do something more. So here I am, mute, deaf, silent, still, the world around me as alien as Mars. Nothing much to do but write.

But now I have a class in 15 minutes and still have things to prepare for it. Even with just two hours a day required to make a decent living and with fewer distractions than Terry Waite had in Beirut, I still feel rushed and diverted from my timeless little world. I sometimes think it might be quite nice to be taken hostage and held in solitary confinement, but I’ve learned to that it’s best to be careful what you wish for. My wishes often materialize.